Solar Freakin’ Roadways

This video took the struggling indiegogo campaign from 30% funded to 100% in just 4 days! If I ever need any kind of guerrilla marketing, I am calling this guy.

I personally think that this is a brilliant freakin’ idea, I have no illusions of it taking off here any time soon (especially with our current leadership, fuck you Abbott.) but it’s something I really want to see happening somewhere.

No more useless asphalt and concrete just sitting there, baking in the sun, needing to be repaved, and filling with potholes that ruin your axle alignment on your uh, sweet, rad, bro. These are intelligent solar panels. Replace a panel at a time when they are damaged or malfunctioning. They’re covered with a new tempered glass material that has been designed and tested to meet all impact, load, and traction requirements.

They are also solar panels — they generate electricity. They generate capital. They pay for themselves and they keep paying more because we’re not going to run out of sun for like 15 billion years. Well, actually it’s about 3.75 billion years, because in about 3.75 billion years the sun will start becoming a red giant and will be hot enough to boil all the oceans and destroy all life on earth. But never mind that.

For those in the north, the panels use energy they collect to power elements to keep the surface temperature a few degrees above freezing — they’re heated. No more ice and snow on roads causing traffic delays, traffic accidents and injury, no more shoveling your driveway and sidewalk, no salt corroding your car, or wasting tax money on snow removal. And you can ride your bike or drive your motorcycle all year round.

Every panel has a series of LED lights on the circuit board that can be programmed to make lanescape designs, warning signs, parking lot configurations, whatever. These roads never have to have lanes repainted, just reprogrammed to whatever we choose or whatever works best. Imagine a highway road lighting up ahead of you, how much safer it would be to drive at night. There would be improved visibility for pilots landing on improved landing strips.

Imagine walking on to a solar recreation court and choosing a sports configuration. Wanna play basketball? Cool. Kids want to play hopscotch and foursquare? Awesome. Ball hockey? Done. These panels are also pressure sensitive, so they can when large debris like branches or boulders have fallen onto the road. Or if an animal is crossing. It can warn drivers with LED text to slow down for an obstruction.